Mirror Mirror
by Scarlet Phoenix
Summary: Everyone has a deep desire. Some are wishes, some are hopes, some are dreams. But everyone has one, and they're about to confront them...in the form of a mirror. The Mirror of Erised.
1. Hermione Granger

mirrorhermione

**Hermione**

Hermione rushed blindly through the halls, eyes brimming with tears. She could hardly see her way around, and for once, she was speechless. All she could think about was how angry Ron and Harry could make her. She thought that offering to help Ron with his homework was a kind, generous offer. But no. Ron got angry and accused her of wanting to make herself look good by doing his homework perfectly. Harry just sat there and watched the whole argument. He didn't even come to her defense! It was too much to bear. 

She didn't have any more energy to run, so she stopped and leaned back against the dusty wall, trying to stop crying. _Crying will do you no good, _she told herself sternly. And yet, the tears didn't stop. Giving up on her goal, she sank to the ground and sobbed miserably. They just didn't understand. Not at all. 

Suddenly, she fell backwards. It happened so fast that one minute she had been staring at the wall in front of her in despair and the next thing she knew, she was staring at a dusty floor. Hermione sneezed and quickly sat up to avoid doing it again. Wiping dust from her robes, she looked around and realized she was in a new room she'd never seen before. Even though she knew no one, not even Dumbledore, knew all of the secret passages of the school, she couldn't help but be amazed. 

Something glittering caught her eye. Turning around, she saw the back of a tall piece of furniture. It was the back of a mirror. Hermione started to turn around and walk away. She didn't want to see how she looked, with her puffy eyes and dusty figure, she knew it wasn't good. But before she could, the unusual carvings caught her eyes. They were curving, going left to right, up and down. It was like the ocean waves. 

There was an inscription on it. It read, _"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi"_. Hermione frowned slightly and started going over it, trying to find its meaning. "Erised?" she said, hoping that saying it aloud would help her figure out what it was. After all, it was the Mirror Of Erised, it said so at the top. She stared at it a moment, then switched the letters around. 

"_I show not your face but your hearts desire!"_ she whispered triumphantly. It was the Mirror of Desire! She had read about it back in third year. It showed more or less your hearts desire. Her first reaction was to step in front of it and see exactly what her heart's deepest yearning was, but she then remembered a passage from the book that clearly said people had been wasted in front of it, living off of what they saw in the mirror. Some even went mad. 

She shoved the precautions aside, for once. Taking a deep breath, she stepped in the mirror's view with her eyes closed. She opened them and glanced at the glass. She gaped. 

It was her, Ron, and Harry, all standing together. They all seemed to be about nineteen or twenty, and they were joking around and laughing with one another. The mirror made it seem like they had no worries at all. As she watched, Ron slipped his hand into hers and Harry smiled knowingly. She then laughed, it must have been some kind of an inside joke between them. 

Puzzled, the real Hermione stepped back away from the mirror's surface. Her heart's deepest desire was to laugh and joke with Ron and Harry when they got older? 

The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. They were all older in the picture, already graduated from Hogwarts. From the looks of it, they were carefree adults. That meant she was planning on them all to survive and live to see those days. Her heart's deepest desire was for them all to grow up and survive whatever the dark side had for them and still be able to laugh and joke with one another. 

Shaking her head, she turned and started running towards the doorway where she came. As she suspected, the door was only a trick one, and she soon found herself back in the halls of Hogwarts. She started running towards the common room, all the while thinking of the mirror. It's not _if _we grow up, it's _when, _she told herself firmly. 

_When._


	2. Draco Malfoy

mirrordraco

**Draco**

Draco wondered the halls, pale cheeks tinged with red. _Potter just thinks he can get away with anything, _he thought angrily. _All I did was call him and his 'friends' a name, and he thinks he can joke about my father! The nerve!_ He quickened his pace, not really knowing where he was going, but not really caring, either. _Sure, my father is a Death Eater. Weasley seems to think that it makes me one, too!_

At this point, Draco stopped walking. In reality, he _was _a Death Eater. He pledged his loyalty to the Dark Lord, tortured several Muggles, and had the Dark Mark branded upon his arm. But it was the stereotypical thinking of them that made him mad. Just because they were Slytherins, they were automatically called evil and were avoided. Why, the nerve-- 

Draco's thought was never finished, for at that moment he came upon a giant portrait. It showed a man of about thirty with jet-black hair and black eyes staring at the space in front of him. Unlike other portraits, this one did not move. It simply looked straight ahead. But that was not the reason Draco stopped. Under the picture was a name that he admired, like any other Slytherin did: Salazar Slytherin. 

He looked up and down, surveying it. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, yet Draco sensed that it was hiding something. It was an unknown instinct that he had, and he wasn't about to abandon it. He hesitantly reached a hand out and touched the surface...only to have it go right through the picture. It didn't take a genius to figure out that there was a secret room behind it, and Draco stepped inside, expecting to see more portraits, a classroom, maybe even a room full of suits of armor. 

What he saw was an empty room. Disgusted, he turned to leave, but a flash of gold got his attention. Turning around, he saw a mirror. It was unusual, too, with an inscription that said, _"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi"_. At the top was carved, _Mirror of Erised._

As soon as he saw the word "Erised", he realized that it was the Mirror of Desire. Father told him of its power when he was a small child. It gave one the chance to see his heart's deepest wish. Father ordered him never to look in it or he would go mad. Smiling, he stepped in front of it and looked inside, already knowing what he would see. He would see himself drinking from golden goblets while servants waited on him hand and foot, and all the while his beautiful wife would be swooning over him. Therefore, when he saw what he was really looking at, his smile quickly faded. 

There was nothing showing. Not even his reflection. 

Draco smacked the mirror with his hand lightly to see if it was malfunctioning. Nothing happened. It continued to show nothing. It didn't even show the reflections of the walls behind it. It was just glass. Like staring into air. Now Draco _knew _it wasn't working properly. It was supposed to show him what he wanted most in life, not air! Once again, he turned to leave, but he stopped and turned back around. This mirror gave him a new feeling. He tried to identify it, and the word popped up in his mind. He felt at peace. 

Peace? Was that it? Did Draco just want peace in his life? Just some clarity, without worries or fears? Was he not satisfied with his life at the time being? 

_No. _Draco shook his head. The mirror just didn't work right. That's why it was in an old room behind a trick picture of one of the Founders. Dumbledore didn't want people to find it, so he sat it there. Yeah. That was it. He turned for the last time and walked out of the room without looking back. Back in the hallways, he met up with his bodyguards, Crabbe and Goyle, and they all left together heading for the Slytherin dungeons. Once inside, they headed up to their dormitory, and he pulled the curtains around his bed for privacy. Then he picked up a book, _Magical Artifacts, _and opened to the chapter about the Mirror or Erised. He quickly scanned the paragraphs and found nothing about them malfunctioning, so with a smug smile, he shut it and didn't give the mirror a second thought. 

If he had, he would have turned the page and found the sentence that said, _"The Mirror of Erised has one quality that has been proven countless times. This quality is the fact that it is never wrong."_


	3. Cho Chang

mirrorcho

**Cho**

****

"I know of a new secret passage, Cho--just go down the second corridor and when you come to the portrait of Godric Gryffindor say 'Wallionsky' and he opens. Then there's a passageway going to the fifth corridor. It's not much, but this way you can set off a Dungbomb or two and get away before Filch turns up," Miranda Hemmine said excitedly to Cho. Cho nodded dumbly. 

"My God, Hemmine, that one's so old. It may even be as old as your mother." Both Cho and Miranda whirled around to see a group of Slytherins advancing on them. Cho noticed her friend turning a dark shade of red. She started to reply, but another Slytherin beat her to it. 

"What's wrong, Chang?" he said, stepping forward. He was revealed as Draco Malfoy, one of Cho's least favorite people. "Still not over Diggory's death? He's gone, Chang--gone_._" 

Cho gasped and her eyes filled with tears at the mention of her deceased boyfriend's death. As much as she wouldn't like to admit it, his taunts were true. She still wasn't over Cedric's death. She kept hoping that one day he would come bursting into Hogwarts, alive and full of spirit, then run over to her. They would kiss and everything would be perfect...like it should have been. 

She turned on her heel and ran. She didn't care where she was going, she just wanted to get away from all the taunts of the Slytherins. She ran down the corridors and had the overwhelming urge to be alone with her own thoughts. Her mind drifted over to the secret area Miranda told her about. She said it was behind the portrait of Godric Gryffindor on the second corridor, right? 

It was worth a shot, and as luck would have it, she found herself on the second corridor. Cho paid careful attention to every painting around her, and when she reached the end of the corridor she found it. Muttering, "Wallionsky!", she watched as it swung open and revealed a dark path. Gulping slightly, she entered and the portrait closed behind her. 

Darkness was surrounding her. She couldn't see a thing. Cho pulled out her wand and said, "Lumos!" and she could dimly see a little bit in front of her. Her cautious footsteps echoed against the walls as she made her way forward, and suddenly, a bright light flashed. It blinded her temporarily, and when it dimmed, she saw it was coming from a mirror in front of her. Curious, Cho stepped forward to see what was causing the strange light. Instead of seeing her own reflection, she saw Cedric. 

A gasp emitted from her throat. There was Cedric! He was alive! Well, not really, but he was in the mirror. Staring unblinkingly back at her, he was as handsome as always. Dark hair, gray eyes, nice figure. His lips were curved into a half smile, and he stood stock still, watching her closely. 

Cho pushed her hands against the glass. He was so close, yet so far away. Tears welled up in her eyes once more and she continued to watch him. For several minutes neither of them moved; never breaking eye contact. Finally, Cho could contain herself no longer, and she burst into noisy sobs, dropping to her knees. 

If only he was alive. They could go along with their plans to meet up in Hogsmeade every weekend, since Cedric would have graduated. They could have talked, laughed, kissed...they could have been together. 

"Cho? Cho, are you in here? Come on, girl, don't let them get to you. You're above that." Miranda's concerned voice rang out, and her footsteps were heard creeping closer and closer to Cho--and Cedric. "Cho? Come on now..." 

_No, Miranda can't see Cedric, _Cho thought frantically. _I need to get her out of here before she sees him! _"Coming, Miranda," she said hoarsely. She picked herself up off the ground and ran as fast as she could possibly go towards the shadowy shape. 

"There you are...come on." Together, they walked back through Godric Gryffindor's portrait and towards their next class, Herbology. Miranda kept chattering away, obviously trying to divert Cho's attention from the Slytherins. Cho, however, paid no heed to her words and was off in a world of her own, thinking about Cedric. 

And what might have been. 


End file.
